that he might
have gone off like Jonas, and to hell with the packers. There were few
single men in the fertilizer mill--and those few were working only for a
chance to escape. Meantime, too, they had something to think about while
they worked,--they had the memory of the last time they had been drunk,
and the hope of the time when they would be drunk again. As for Jurgis,
he was expected to bring home every penny; he could not even go with
the men at noontime--he was supposed to sit down and eat his dinner on a
pile of fertilizer dust.

This was not always his mood, of course; he still loved his family. But
just now was a time of trial. Poor little Antanas, for instance--who
had never failed to win him with a smile--little Antanas was not smiling
just now, being a mass of fiery red pimples. He had had all the diseases
that babies are heir to, in quick succession, scarlet fever, mumps, and
whooping cough in the first year, and now he was down with the measles.
There was no one to attend him but Kotrina; there was no doctor to
help him, because they were too poor, and children did not die of the
measles--at least not often. Now and then Kotrina would find time to sob
over his woes, but for the greater part of the time he had to be left
alone, barricaded upon the bed. The floor was full of drafts, and if he
caught cold he would die. At night he was tied down, lest he should kick
the covers off him, while the family lay in their stupor of exhaustion.
He would lie and scream for hours, almost in convulsions; and then, when
he was worn out, he would lie whimpering and wailing in his torment.
He was burning up with fever, and his eyes were running sores; in
the daytime he was a thing uncanny and impish to behold, a plaster of
pimples and sweat, a great purple lump of misery.

Yet all this was not really as cruel as it sounds, for, sick as he was,
little Antanas was the least unfortunate member of that family. He
was quite able to bear his sufferings--it was as if he had all these
complaints to show what a prodigy of health he was. He was the child of
his parents' youth and joy; he grew up like the conjurer's rosebush, and
all the world was his oyster. In general, he toddled around the kitchen
all day with a lean and hungry look--the portion of the family's
allowance that fell to him was not enough, and he was unrestrainable in
his demand for more. Antanas was but little over a year old, and already
no one but his father could